Resuscitation Council UK welcomes the publication of the Improvement Analytics Unit and Health Foundation report on reducing potentially avoidable emergency admissions from care homes, which evaluates the Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH) framework. The EHCH framework builds on the NHS long term plan ambition to improve health and care in care homes and reduce demand for emergency care.
Resuscitation Council UK leads on the ReSPECT (Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment) Process which aims to address many of the same issues as the EHCH framework. ReSPECT is a person-centred emergency care planning process where healthcare professionals have conversations with patients about their preferences, which are recorded on a form to inform clinical judgements and recommendations about future emergency care at a time when the person is not able to decide for themselves.
We are pleased to see the evidence that care home residents often prefer to be treated in the care home or in a medical facility close to home than to be admitted to hospital, or to avoid the need to seek urgent treatment in the first place. This means that reducing emergency admissions could be good for residents.
ReSPECT can enable individuals to have discussions about their hopes, fears and the outcomes they value thereby ensuring a person’s wishes about place of care and types of preferred treatment are known about and recorded. In addition, because ReSPECT is adopted across care settings, it can also encourage integrated and co-ordinated partnership working across multidisciplinary teams in health and social care. We are also working on solutions for education and training, particularly for care home staff, and digital integration. Such initiatives have the potential to improve quality of life and quality of care for both nursing and residential care home residents and indeed, anyone interested in recording their preferences for emergency care and treatment.
